Creating java executable using JNI ?

Question

I am trying to create executable under windows platform for Java program using JNI ,C/C++ and invocation API, I have already created jar file for my program which includes all dependencies. I want to embed it in exe file, I was successful in running simple main class(present in file system) using JNI invocation API, I am planning to add jar file as resource in C/C++ program. But I don't know how do I run that jar file , One option is create temporary jar file on file system and run it using java, But I do not want to expose my jar file to everyone for security reasons, How can I run jar file on the fly using JNI ?

Answer 1

Compiling Java to an executable with GCJ does not work all the time, there are limitations as far as using reflection and other items such as UI classes, Look at this page.

If you convert you Java Code to a library or simply another module then you could link to it and simply run it without the need for a JVM.

Answer 2

My initial reaction was that I would be shocked if you could get this to work and have it be performant. But then I started thinking about it, and maybe you could pull this off using a custom class loader. If you embed the jar in the exe as a resource, it would be exactly the same as having the jar bytes be present at a particular offset in any file (whether an exe or not).

So, here's a potential strategy: implement a custom class loader that accepts the exe path and offset of the jar resource in that file. This would use a custom version of ZipFile that uses a fixed index offset for it's reads (unfortunately, it isn't going to be possible to use ZipFile itself - but if you grab the source of ZipFile it should be pretty obvious where you'll need to add the offset).

There is a bootstrapping issue here (how do you load the custom class loader?) - but I think it might be possible to do that from the JNI side. Basically you'd store the .class file for the loader as a separate resource in the exe, load it fully into memory then construct it using JNI calls. That will be a hassle, but it's just for one class, and then you can let the Java runtime take over the rest.

Sounds like an interesting project (Although, as others are pointing out, there isn't much security in what you are doing... I suppose that you could encrypt the embedded jar and add decryption code to the classloader, but you've kinda got to decide how far you want to take this thing).